RELIGION And SOCIETY (Religion homework essay...melbourne australia)
             Describe the historical, social, and religious context by which the church was challenged and how it responded to it.
             The Roman Catholic Church faced numerous challenges internally as well as externally during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
             In my analysis, I will look at the historical, social, and religious contexts within which the challenges of the church developed.
             One major challenge was the rise and development of modernity with new philosophies such as Marxism and liberalism.
             In the 19th and 20th centuries, up until 1960, the historical contexts in the world fostered the development of the modernity, which challenged the Catholic Church in many ways. Enlightenment, fuelled by the French revolution, the industrial revolution, and the renaissance created a new theme of liberalism with a new way of rational and scientific thinking. Rationalism encouraged the idea of reaching one's full potential through one's one efforts. This kind of thinking contrasted with faith and challenged some of the main core beliefs of the catholic church such as the kingdom of god, the creator and redeemer, as well as the belief of the full human potential that can only be reached through faith in god.
             Rapid change was happening during this time with the involvement of the church with world conflicts world war 1(1914-1918) and 2(1939-1945). The development of atomic weapons since 1940 gave way to a new threat to society with its devastating effects. Economic depression was also spreading throughout Europe, and capitalism, which emerged from democracy, resulted in the oppression of the poor. With the reformation and the spread of new philosophies, the church began to find itself in an increasingly secular world.
             The social context of the Catholic Church was closely tied to that of historical. With new w
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